ABSTRACT
A comparison of the effect of some solid interstitial materials on the thermal conductance of joints indicates that such materials could be used as either thermal enhancers or as thermal isolators. A new correlation of experimental data on the effectiveness of foils shows that the effectiveness depends strongly on the relative thermal conductivities and the relative hardnesses of the foil and the base materials. The correlation also showed that the effectiveness is also influenced by the ratio of the foil thickness to the surface roughness. The effectiveness, however, appears to be essentially insensitive to the contact pressure variations.
